John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Question 227: To ask the Minister for Finance if funding is available to the valuation office to carry out a full revision of rateable valuations of properties in Waterford city and county; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37768/10]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The Valuation Act 2001 which came into effect on 2nd May, 2002, provides for the revaluation of all commercial and industrial property in the State. The Commissioner of Valuation has sole responsibility for all valuation matters under the Act, which includes the implementation of the revaluation programme. This is a major project in nature and scale, given that such a nationwide exercise has not been undertaken since the mid-1800's. The programme began in November 2005 in the South Dublin County Council area and has since been rolled out to the areas covered by Fingal and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Councils. In the next phase, it is intended to roll out the programme to further local authority areas in the coming months and the necessary process of consultation, as provided for under the Act, is underway in Dublin City and in the local authorities of Waterford, i.e. Waterford City and County Council and Dungarvan Town Council. Preliminary work is also underway on the revaluation of Limerick City.

The purpose of revaluation is to bring more equity, fairness and transparency into the local authority rating system and, following completion of the initial national revaluation programme, I am satisfied that there will be a much closer and uniform relationship between rental values of property and their commercial rates liability and that this relationship will thereafter be maintained by means of the recurring revaluations provided for in the Act.

The funding for the revaluation project in general, which includes the Waterford phase of the project, is being provided in the normal way through the annual Valuation Office Vote allocation. At this stage, it is not envisaged that additional resources will be required to undertake the project which is an integral part of the Valuation Office work programme.